Tompkins: Catfish are a bigger deal in Texas

Updated 7:03 pm, Sunday, March 18, 2012

Photo: Shannon Tompkins

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Josh Blackmon of TPWD's Jasper Fish Hatchery prepares to release a 50-pound-plus blue catfish into the Trinity River below Lake Livingston. The fish was one of 41 huge cats that had served decades as brood fish in the hatchery and were returned to the Trinity and Lake Livingston, where the fish had been collected years ago. less

Josh Blackmon of TPWD's Jasper Fish Hatchery prepares to release a 50-pound-plus blue catfish into the Trinity River below Lake Livingston. The fish was one of 41 huge cats that had served decades as brood fish ... more

Photo: Shannon Tompkins

Tompkins: Catfish are a bigger deal in Texas

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We Texans love our catfish, and not just fried, sharing a plate next to a hill of crispy cole slaw and a pile of smoking-hot hush puppies - although that's a pretty good reason.

We love to fish for and catch them - much more so than most other folks in this nation.

And we spend a lot of time trying to catch them. Texas anglers who said they prefer to target catfish in the 2009 Texas Parks and Wildlife Department-funded survey reported spending an average of 20 days a year trying to catch them. Texas anglers spend 12 million or so days a year chasing cats.

There are plenty to chase, particularly for anglers in the Houston area.

"We have really outstanding catfish fisheries close to Houston," said Mark Webb, Bryan-based district fisheries biologist for TPWD's inland fisheries division. "Lake Conroe is a tremendous catfish lake. So is Lake Houston and Lake Livingston."

'Important' species

Catfish trail only largemouth bass in popularity among Texas freshwater anglers, said Dave Terre, TPWD's chief of inland fisheries management and research. And they likely will gain ground.

"Catfish have always been very important to Texas anglers," Terre said. "They may be even more important in the future."

In a state where human population is predicted to balloon to 33 million by 2020, water quality and quantity is doomed to deteriorate. That may mean some species of fish that require fairly narrow aquatic habitats don't do as well under current conditions.

Catfish, especially blue catfish but channel cats, too, are much more flexible in their habitat and water quality requirements.

"They can do well in a wide range of waters," Terre said. "Cats can do better in lower-quality waters than some other fish."

That adaptability could mean catfish become an even more important species to Texas anglers over coming years.

Part of that increasing importance comes from changes in catfish anglers' focus and shifting ideas of how catfish fisheries can be managed.

Impressive sizes

Catfish primarily have been a catch-and-eat fish for most anglers, with most folks targeting the 2-5-pound fish. That's reflected in the state's standard catfish regulation, which allows an angler to take an aggregate daily bag limit of 25 blue and channel catfish, with a 12-inch minimum length requirement.

But catfish are long-lived creatures, and blues, the most common and widespread of Texas catfish, can grow to truly impressive sizes. The state-record, rod-and-reel-caught blue cat is a 121.5-pounder. There are some big catfish out there.

And, increasingly, those big catfish are a focus of some Texas anglers. Where just a few years ago, big catfish were taken almost exclusively on trotlines and jug lines, increasing numbers of anglers are using rod-and-reel to target the big cats.

"There's definitely an increase in interest in 'trophy' catfish, and people are getting very good at it," Terre said, noting that many in this growing segment of the catfishing community are more interested in the challenge of catching (and often releasing) these big fish than in eating them.

"There's a mystique about big catfish," Terre said, noting the highest visitation to the state's Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens came in the months immediately following the fisheries center putting "Splash," the live, 121.5-pound state-record blue catfish, in one of its large display tanks.

Increased interest in the trophy segment of the catfish fishery and the habitat changes and surges in fishing pressure coming as Texas' population explodes have Texas fisheries mangers looking hard at catfish.

"Texas has some of the best catfish populations in the country," said Terre. "We want to make them better."

Hatcheries help

TPWD for the past few years has pursued research aimed at learning more about catfish population dynamics and growth rates in a variety of fisheries, how different harvest regulations affect fisheries, and the characteristics of Texas catfish anglers. At the same time, the agency has honed its ability to produce catfish in hatcheries.

Blue catfish, the most widespread of the three primary catfish species and the one growing to largest size, have been the focus of most of the research.

Fisheries mangers have learned that it typically takes 10 years or so for a blue cat to reach 30 inches, considered "trophy" size. The fish can live as long as 30 years or more.

"But there's great variability in growth rates," Terre said. "Some 14-inch blue cats are 3 years old; some are 15 years old."

Using experimental bag and size limits, TPWD fisheries managers are hoping to develop programs that produce desired catfish populations. Some fisheries might be managed to provide anglers with lots of small and mid-size catfish but few trophy fish, while others are managed to produce more trophy fish at the expense of overall catfish quantity.

While those efforts may change the face of Texas' catfish fishery down the line, a TPWD project this past week made an immediate contribution to the state's trophy catfish potential.

As TPWD's new John D. Parker Fish Hatchery near Jasper begins operation and replaces the old, less efficient Jasper Hatchery, staff there will make changes in its blue catfish production. Part of those changes includes reducing and replacing its stock of "brooder" blue catfish with younger fish.

The blues, many of which have been in the hatchery for 20 years or more, originally were captured from the Trinity River immediately downstream from Lake Livingston.

Hatchery staff released 21 of the monster catfish, all of which weighed 40 pounds or more and included a behemoth weighing 90 pounds, into the reservoir at the Lake Livingston Lake State Park boat ramp.

The remaining 20 were loosed into the Trinity just downstream from the Livingston Dam, the same water from which they had been captured.

Those fish will continue contributing to the lake's and river's already considerable catfish fishery, said TPWD's Mark Webb. The fish almost certainly will continue spawning, adding potentially hundreds of thousands of blue cats to the fishery.

And if someone catches one of those ponderous cats, it'll just add to Texas' already considerable reputation as a premier state for catfish and catfishing.